
Sylvain Gouraud
The Nature of Balances is a story built around a photographic investigation that Sylvain Gouraud conducted over a decade in agricultural circles.
It follows the thread that connects our ways of seeing to our ways of working the land, playing on the analogy between photographing and land grabbing. It attempts to connect the worlds of culture and agriculture.
The book is divided into three chapters entitled:
Seeing, Knowing, and Having.
Seeing: This first chapter describes our ways of seeing and the influence of aesthetics on agricultural practices.
Knowing: This second chapter immerses us in the need for farmers to make choices and in the way their knowledge is constructed, between scientific belief and esoteric pragmatism.
Having: This final chapter explores the consequences of a capitalist understanding of life through our relationship with agricultural machinery, land grabbing, and seed patenting.
The Nature of Balances presents a contemporary representation of the agricultural world, from its various practices to the way it shapes the land. It explores both the industrial and biodynamic aspects.